WALA LANG
Eager Buyers and Enthusiastic Sellers
It is easy enough to tell if an image, piece of furniture, relieve, textile, or other object came from a church. Size and type are giveaways. Without identifying marks, measurements, or photographs, however, it is often impossible to match a missing object and something in a collector’s home.
Priests are sometimes unaware of the Canon Law provision cited by Cebu Archbishop Palma and sell something to fund a needed church project or to balance the church budget. It is only human to want to “do something” while in office. It could be something necessary like fixing the roof and exterminating termites or something grander but doubtful, like exposing the stone beneath original paletada, replacing an old-fashioned retablo, or modernizing the church itself. There are also reports of reverends selling church treasures for personal gain.
Priests can simply be uncaring of church history and heritage. For example, the remains of an 18th-century fraile had been interred at the foot of the altar of the church that he personally funded and built. His remains and the lápida disappeared beneath a new flooring of beige marble tiles. Then there was this church with a gold reliquary offered by a 19th-century governor general. It seems to have been given away as a thank you gift to a generous parishioner.
Collectors are not all saints. Some would not be above offering a brand-new refrigerator for an armless santo or wobbly refectory table.
Priests are not all saints, either. I once bought a Nstra. Sra. de la Soledad de Porta Vaga. The Virgin’s face was ivory and her garment was silver. There was a small gold galleon on one side and the whole was framed in silver. Soon after my purchase, I saw a photo of the very same image reported as missing from a Central Luzon church. Of course, I confronted the dealer who sold it to me. She replied that it was “legit,” having been sold by the son of the parish priest, a drug addict. I figured it was bound to disappear a second time were I to return it and so I held on to the image. Years later, I learned that the parish priest and son were no longer there so I returned the Soledad. At the turnover, the image was placed behind burglar-proof bars and thick glass.
Priests and parish councils, even bishops, have been rather casual about “old stuff.”
In various private collections are almost life-size images of the 12 Apostles that once graced the nave of a Visayas Diocesan shrine and cathedral. They were officially auctioned off in the 1980s. They fetched something like ₱16,000 each.
Among the must-see exhibits of the National Museum is an impressive retablo with traces of its original color, acquired in the late 1970s and exhibited in the Luis A. Ablaza Room. The retablo is in three levels but because the ceiling is not high enough, the lower two levels are at one end of the room and the top level is on the opposite end. There lies a story. I used to make the rounds of Mabini antique shops on Saturday afternoons and dealer Nene Cortez told me she had bought two retablos from Dimiao in Bohol. One had already been cannibalized and sold piece by piece, but one was still intact. I contacted the the museum director, Fr. Gabriel S. Casal, who said the museum had no money. I was then budget commissioner and succeeded in getting President Marcos’ approval for the release of the ₱30,000 cost, which is why the retablo is now in the National Museum. Note that Dimianons knew about the sale and a priest was the buyer.
Intramuros Administration (“IA”) has half a dozen 18th-century gilded relieves of events in the life of the Virgin. They were originally parts of an extraordinary retablo that had relieves instead of three-dimensional images. It was in the chapel of Cebu’s University of San Jose-Recoletos and the fathers decided to build a larger and modern replacement. They decided the retablo was out of place and sold it to a couple of private collectors. One of them donated some of the relieves and sold others to IA.
Pulpits seem to have been considered disposable. In the late 1970s, Manila’s San Sebastian church sold off its pulpit that was part of the steel church’s original neo-Gothic décor. Also sold were images, a carroza, and antique furniture, some of which had survived the 1945 destruction of Intramuros’ Recoletos church. The pulpit ended up with IA, but in discussion with the Augustinian Recollects hit by sellers’ remorse, it is back on its old pillar, evidently on long-term loan. IA also bought the carroza and enhanced by the late Conrado Escudero, now bears the festejada image of the December Grand Marian Procession.
In both the San Agustin Church Museum and a Bangko Sentral lobby are complete Stations of the Cross. The San Agustin set of 14 paintings on canvas were available in the 1970s for ₱2,000 each. I almost bought the one with Simon of Cyrene wearing a balangót hat but it would have looked odd in my sala. The Bangko Sentral’s Stations are superb paintings on wood panels said to be from Matalom, Leyte and dated 1815, if I’m not mistaken.
Empty Churches and Overflowing Museums
There is much to be said for images and retablos remaining in their home churches, and for reliquaries and chalices properly displayed in their home sacristies. They would certainly attract and educate visitors more effectively than if they were lined up a la antique shop in a museum gallery with labels like, “San Roque, wood.” No kidding, that is how a Manila museum describes its santos.
The mission churches of the US South West—California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico—are mostly smaller and austere compared with our own Spanish Regime churches. Practically all are carefully restored, however, and maintained and attract large numbers of “Mission Trail” visitors for their architecture, contents, and history. In most, original features and objects remain in situ. Some have museum rooms where visitors, including busloads of schoolchildren, learn about life when Spain, spearheaded by Franciscan missionaries, colonized the area. A large part of South Texas, incidentally, was known as “Nueva Filipinas.” Items in California like a capiz window in Mission Carmel and an 18th-century Philippine urna in San Francisco’s Mission Dolores not only add interest to a visit but also recall vividly the Galleon Trade and Philippine links with Mexico and the US.
The ancient churches of Latin America and Europe retain fabulous objects, including some from here. Many Spanish churches, in particular, have large ivory images thought to have been carved by Chinese sculptors working in Manila’s Parian, Tepozotlan in Mexico’s Distrito Federál, which has a marvelous church, and fabulous 17th-century objects known to have arrived on the Manila Galleon. Superb ivory images from the Philippines are in the permanent collection of Singapore’s Asian Civilizations Museum.
It would be great if a few of our notable churches were meticulously restored to their old appearance and have their vanished contents back, even temporarily. The controversy over the Boljoon pulpit panels, however, could make it more difficult for churches and museums to borrow objects for special exhibitions let alone as long-term loans. Certainly, collectors are likely to be more secretive about their treasures, lest someone emerge from the woodwork rightly or falsely claiming that the object on exhibit was stolen or was sold without proper authority, causing unwanted publicity and inconvenience to the lender.
My two cents’ worth: First, the compilation and maintenance by the NBI or CBCP of an inventory of missing church valuables similar to INTERPOL’s Stolen Art Objects Database; and Second, a selective amnesty covering among others, (a) objects not on the inventory and of uncertain origin, (b) objects sold with the approval of the parish pastoral council, and (c) objects sold with the knowledge and acquiescence of parishioners.
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